More evidence has gradually emerged suggesting that a powerful Chromebook comes with dedicated graphics from AMD, which would be the first time, but the question begs: why? Chromeunboxed's Luke Short found references in the collection configuration of the alleged device, called Mushu, suggesting that the Chromebook will come with a dedicated AMD Radeon Vega XNUMX GPU. Short dug a little deeper and found a dev board that appeared on eBay some time ago that might be an indicator of what that Vega XNUMX GPU would look like, with XNUMXGB of high-speed memory, XNUMX compute cores, and, what most essential, driver support in Linux. Google Chrome OS is based on Linux and now supports running native Linux applications; more on that in a bit. While those specs, if accurate and applicable to the GPU that comes with the Mushu Chromebook, would be pretty handy when it comes to the best gaming laptops, it would be by far the most powerful Chromebook ever released in terms of graphics performance. This is because Chromebooks previously only shipped with integrated graphics, which is no match for dedicated graphics. If that's true, that would make the Mushu, or whatever it's called, the first Chromebook capable of doing a passable job of playing games. This is where all that "for what reason?" The question arrives.
For what reason?
There's a good reason Chromebooks aren't considered gaming devices. Their main draw is that they are affordable alternatives to laptops, and costs are kept low as they use less powerful components. They can use less powerful components because Google Chrome OS, the operating system Chromebooks run on (and which is based on Google's Google Chrome web browser), consumes more limited resources than Windows 5 or macOS, thus It can go quickly and smoothly. fed material. Modern games obviously don't run well on low-powered hardware, coupled with the fact that very few, if any, will run natively on Google Chrome OS, since they're designed primarily for Windows, which they use. most of the players. Computer employment. So what good would a gaming Chromebook be if there's nothing to play? Well, Short has some interesting theories. For starters, there have been rumors that Valve and Google may be working on bringing Steam to Google Chrome OS. Steam is an extremely popular store for purchasing computer games and also allows people to stream games from other gaming computers. According to Short, the exact same hardware used by Mushu, called "Hatch", is used to test Steam on Google Chrome OS. With Steam native, Chromebooks could have access to a huge library of games. However, there is still the problem with games made for Windows XNUMX, not Google Chrome OS. Mas Valve has been working on their "Proton" solution, which is a compatibility layer that lets Windows XNUMX games run natively on Linux. If Valve works to bring Proton to Google Chrome OS (which, as we mentioned earlier, can now run Linux apps, so it's not too complicated), suddenly Google Chrome OS has access to a wide range of computer games and a A Chromebook with a dedicated GPU is suddenly going to be a very attractive proposition, especially if it costs significantly less than a Windows XNUMX gaming laptop. It's all based on a lot of guesswork and gossip now, but the idea of a gaming Chromebook suddenly makes more sense. Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell, when asked about Steam's introduction to game consoles lately, gave a cryptic reply: "You're going to have a better idea by the end of this year." suppose. Instead of bringing Steam to PSXNUMX and Xbox Series X, could you have hinted at Steam on Chromebooks? Who knows, we might still see Steam-branded Chromebooks in the future. Today's best gaming laptop deals
